The Dark Side of African Tribal Beliefs… The Peace Corps Series

June 22, 2012January 24, 2015 / Curt Mekemson / Leave a comment

This week marks the beginning of a new blog about my experiences as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Liberia West Africa from 1965-67. I am using a WordPress theme designed to look and read like a book. Each week I will post a new chapter. When I have completed the book, I will publish it both digitally and in print. Visit me at http://liberiapeacecorps.com/ to read the first and subsequent chapters.

This week I will post three different short stories about Liberia on this blog, “Wandering in Time and Place,” to give my readers a sample of what to expect on the new blog and in the book. Today’s story: The Dark Side of African Tribal Beliefs. (I have posted this story before under Lightning Man.)

Late one evening during a tropical downpour, a very wet and frightened candidate for student body president, Mamadee Wattee, knocked on our door. The opposition had purchased ‘medicine’ from a Ju Ju Man (witch doctor in Tarzanese) to make Mamadee sick.

It was serious business; people were known to die in similar circumstances.

Had the opposition slandered Mamadee or stuffed the ballot box, I could have helped. But countering black magic was way out of my league. I took the issue to the High School Principal and he dealt with it. Mamadee stayed well and won the election.

Later, he unintentionally introduced us to another tribal phenomenon, the Lightning Man.

I had left Mamadee with $50 to buy us a drum of kerosene while my wife and I were on vacation in East Africa. When we returned home, Mamadee was sitting on our doorstep. Someone had stolen the money and he was obviously upset. Fifty dollars represented a small fortune to most tribal Liberians. (Given that we were paid $120 dollars a month for teaching, it was hardly spare change to us.)

Mamadee’s father, a chief of the Kpelle tribe, was even more upset and wanted to assure us that his son had nothing to do with the missing money. It was a matter of honor. He offered to hire a Lightning Man to prove Mamadee’s innocence.

The Lightning Man had a unique power; he could make lighting strike whoever was guilty of a crime. If someone stole your cow or your spouse, ZAP! Since we were in the tropics, there was lots of lightning. Whenever anyone was struck, people would shake their heads knowingly. One more bad guy had been cooked; justice had been served.

We didn’t believe Mamadee had taken the money and even if he had we certainly didn’t want him fried, or even singed. We passed on the offer.

Another Liberian Peace Corps Volunteer chose a different path. Here’s how the story was told to us. Tom had just purchased a $70 radio so he could listen to the BBC and keep up with the news. He enjoyed his new toy for a few days and it disappeared.

“I am going to get my radio back,” he announced and then hiked into the village where he quickly lined up some students to take him to the Lightning Man. Off they went, winding through the rainforest to the Lighting Man’s hut.

“I want you to make lighting strike whoever stole my radio,” Tom said, and then paid five dollars for the service. (Lightning Men have to eat too.)

Tom and his entourage then returned home. By this time, everyone in the village knew about the trip, including undoubtedly, the person who had stolen the radio.

That night, there was a tremendous thunder and lightning storm. Ignoring for the moment that it was in the middle of the rainy season and there were always tremendous thunder and lightning storms, put your self in the shoes of the thief who believed in the Lightning Man’s power. Each clap of thunder would have been shouting his name.

The next morning Tom got up, had breakfast and went out on his porch. There was the radio.

(Note: Mamadee would go on to become an elementary school principal in New Jersey.)

My Name Is Captain Die and This Is My Dog Rover… The Peace Corps Series

June 20, 2012January 24, 2015 / Curt Mekemson / Leave a comment

In our two years of living in Liberia as Peace Corps Volunteers, Peace Corps we would have many unusual experiences. One of our more unusual took place within our first week of living in Gbarnga, the town where we were assigned. It involved meeting Captain Die and his dog Rover.

Captain Die was a well digger who was reported to have spent too much time in dark holes. Our well was one of his jobs. He had dug it for our predecessors, two female Volunteers. Afterwards, he began stopping by to visit the women and bum cigarettes.

Therefore, it wasn’t surprising when he appeared on our doorstep shortly after we moved in. His introduction was unique.

“Hello, my name is Captain Die. My name is Captain Die because I am going to die someday. This is my dog, Rover. Roll over Rover. Give me a cigarette.” Rover, who was a big ugly dog of indeterminate parenthood, dutifully rolled over.

It made quite an impression.

We explained to Captain Die that neither of us smoked but invited him in to share some ice tea we had just brewed. We gave the Captain a glass and he took a huge swallow. I have no idea what he thought he was getting but it wasn’t Lipton’s. He thought we were trying to poison him.

A look of terror crossed his face and he spit the ice tea out in a forceful spray that covered half the kitchen and us. Dripping wet, we found ourselves caught between concern, laughter and dismay. The Captain marched out of our house in disgust with Rover close behind.

In addition to having found our predecessors an excellent supply of tobacco, Captain Die had been quite taken with one of them. The story was told to us how he appeared at the door when Maryanne’s parents were visiting from the States. Captain Die was a man on a mission. He was going to request Maryanne’s hand in marriage.

I’ve always imagined the scene as follows.

Maryanne’s parents are sitting in the living room on folding chairs making a game attempt at hiding their culture shock when this big black man and his ugly dog appear at the screen door.

Maryanne jumps up and says, “Oh Mom and Dad, I would like you to meet my friend, Captain Die.” Mom and Dad, brainwashed by Emily Post and wishing to appear nonchalant, quickly stand up with strained smiles on their faces.

Captain Die grabs Dad’s hand and tries to snap his finger at the same time proclaiming, “Hello, my name is Captain Die. My name is Captain Die because I am going to die some day. This is my dog Rover. Roll over Rover. Give me your daughter.”

No one told me how Maryanne’s parents responded to the good Captain’s offer so I will leave the ending up to the reader’s imagination. I can report that Maryanne was not whisked out of the country by her mom and dad.

While Captain Die’s visit had a purpose, there were a lot of folks who were just plain curious about how we lived. One little girl would have put a cat to shame. I never could figure out where she came from.

She would stand on our porch with her nose pressed against the screen door and stare at us for what seemed like hours. After a while it would become disconcerting and I’d suggest she go home. She would disappear but then I’d look up and there she’d be again, little nose pressed flat.

Finally, deciding more drastic measures were called for, I picked up my favorite folding chair and plopped it down a foot from the door. Then I sat down and initiated a stare back campaign. I lowered my head and moved forward until I was even with her head and about five inches away. The little nose slowly moved backward, suddenly turned around and took off at a fast gallop.

After that she watched the weird people from across the street.

A Short Lesson on Cats and Guacamole… The Peace Corps Series

June 18, 2012January 24, 2015 / Curt Mekemson / Leave a comment

The cultural anthropologist James Gibbs was living in Gbarnga while he was studying the Kpelle people. Sam, our houseboy, worked for him as an informant on tribal customs.

One evening James and his wife Jewelle invited my wife Jo Ann and me over for dinner. It was our first invitation out as Peace Corps Volunteers. I should also note we were still at the point of being recent college graduates and somewhat awed by academicians.

We dressed up in our best clothes and walked a mile down the dirt road past Massaquoi Elementary School to where they lived.

The Gibbs had an impressive house for upcountry Liberia. They were sophisticated, nice folks who quickly put us at ease. Among the hors d’oeuvres they were serving was a concoction of mashed avocado, tomatoes and hot peppers that Jo and I found quite tasteful. We made the mistake of asking what it was.

“Why it’s guacamole of course,” Dr. Gibbs declared. We must have looked blank because he went on, “Surely anyone from California knows what guacamole is.”

Surely we didn’t. I felt like Barbara Streisand in Funny Girl when she learned that pate was mashed chicken liver. It was 1965 and Mexican food had yet to storm Northern California. Yes, we’d graduated from UC Berkeley but dining out on our survival budget meant beer and pizza at La Val’s or a greasy hamburger at Kip’s.

To change the subject I called attention to their cat.

“Nice cat,” I noted.

Mrs. Gibbs gushed. “Oh, that’s Suzy. She’s in love.”

Dr. Gibbs jumped in, obviously glad to leave the subject of guacamole. “The boys are coming by every night to visit. We hear them yowl their affection up on the roof.”

Suzie looked quite proud of her accomplishments. Having been properly introduced, she strolled over and rubbed up against my legs. I reached down and scratched her head, which served as an invitation to climb into my lap. While arranging herself, Suzie provided me with a tails-eye view. Staring back at me was the anatomy of the most impressive tomcat I’ve ever seen. Suzie had the balls of a goat!

I could hardly contain myself. “Um, Suzie isn’t Suzie,” I managed to get out while struggling to maintain a straight face.

“What do you mean Suzie isn’t Suzie?” Dr. Gibbs asked in a voice meant to put impertinent grad students in their place. Rather than respond verbally, I turned the cat around and aimed his tail at Dr. Gibbs. Understanding flitted across his face.

“We never thought to look,” he mumbled lamely. We were even. While the kids from the hills might not know their guacamole from mashed avocados, they did know basic anatomy.

(Note… I may have Suzie’s name wrong after all of these years but the cat definitely had a female name.)

An Offer to Teach in Africa: From Free Speech to Peace Corps

February 7, 2012January 24, 2015 / Curt Mekemson / Leave a comment

In the spring of 1965 Uncle Sam pointed his finger at me. He wanted warm bodies to fight a colonial war in Southeast Asia the French had already lost. Being a 22-year-old male about to graduate from college, I was a prime candidate.

If drafted, I would go.

I couldn’t imagine burning my draft card, running off to Canada or joining the Texas Air National Guard. I actually believe some type of mandatory two-year national service ranging from the military to the Peace Corps would be good for young men and women and good for America.

But fighting in a war I didn’t believe in and killing people I didn’t want to kill was at the very bottom of my bucket list. And there’s more. I am allergic to taking orders and can’t stand being yelled at. I’d make a lousy soldier. I saw a court martial in my future.

Luckily, a temporary solution popped up. Peace Corps Recruiters were coming to UC Berkeley.

John Kennedy had first proposed this idealistic organization to a crowd of 5,000 students during a campaign speech at he University of Michigan on October 14, 1960. He was running four hours late and it was two in the morning but the response was overwhelming. One of his first acts as President was to create the agency.

Peace Corps service would not eliminate my military obligation but it might buy time for the Vietnam War to sort itself out. Of more importance, I felt the Peace Corps provided a unique opportunity to travel and possibly do some good. I also believed I would be serving my country.

My fiancé and I sat down and talked it out. Jo Ann was excited. We would go together as a husband and wife team. When the Peace Corps recruiters opened their booth in front of the Student Union at Berkeley, we were there to greet them, all dewy-eyed and innocent.

“Sign us up,” we urged.

Of course there were a few formalities: small things like filling out the umpteen page blue application and taking a language aptitude test, in Kurdish. We also needed letters of recommendation.

Apparently we looked good on paper. In a few weeks, the Peace Corps informed us that we had been tentatively selected to serve as teachers in Liberia, West Africa. We were thrilled. The age-old question of what you do when you graduate from school and enter the real world had been answered, or at least postponed.

Uncle Sam with his growing hunger for bodies to fight the Vietnam War would have wait.

Next Blog: My roommate tells the FBI I am running a Communist Cell Block.

I sign up for the Peace Corps, but there’s this problem…

March 29, 2011January 23, 2015 / Curt Mekemson / 1 Comment

It was 1965 and I was faced with a dilemma. Uncle Sam was looking for warm bodies to ship off to the jungles of Southeast Asia to fight in a colonial war the French couldn’t win. Being a 22-year-old male about to graduate from college, I was a prime candidate.

If drafted, I would go. But fighting in a war I didn’t believe in, killing people I didn’t want to kill, and possibly being killed or crippled myself was at the very bottom of my list of things I was excited about doing.

A temporary solution presented itself. Peace Corps Recruiters were coming to campus.

Ever since Kennedy had created this idealistic organization three years earlier, I had been fascinated with the idea of joining. Two years of Peace Corps would not eliminate my military obligations but it might buy time for the war in Vietnam to work itself out.

Of more importance to me, it sounded like an incredible experience. My fiancé and I sat down and talked it out. She was willing to sign up with me and we would go together as a husband and wife team.

When the Peace Corps recruiters opened their booth in front of the UC Berkeley Student Union, we were there to greet them, all dewy eyed and innocent.

“Sign us up,” we urged.

Of course there were a few formalities; small things like filling out the umpteen page blue application and taking a language aptitude test, which featured Kurdish. We also needed letters of recommendation.

Apparently we looked good on paper. In a few weeks, Peace Corps informed us that we had been tentatively selected to serve as teachers in Liberia, West Africa. We were thrilled. That age old question of what do you do when you graduate from college and have to enter the real world had been answered for us, at least temporarily.

Uncle Sam with his growing hunger for bodies to ship to Vietnam would have wait.

There were still two hurdles, though, and both were tied to the illusive if. We could go if we could pass the background security check and if we could get through training. Training wasn’t a worry. We had enough confidence in ourselves to assume we would float through. How hard could it be after Berkeley?

The Security Check was something else. Jo Ann, of course, was squeaky clean. But Curt had been up to a little mischief at Berkeley, hung out with the wrong people, been seen in a few places where law abiding people weren’t supposed to be and had his name on a number of petitions.

“And where were you Mr. Mekemson the night the students took over the Administration Building?”

Maybe there was even a file somewhere…

Soon I started hearing from friends at home. The man with the badge had been by to see them. The background security check was underway. One day I came home to the apartment and my roommate Jerry was there, looking very nervous.

“I have to talk to you Curtis,” he blurted out. “The FBI was by today doing your Peace Corps background check and I told them you had been holding communist cell block meetings in our apartment.

Jerry was not kidding; Jerry was deadly serious; Jerry was dead.

“What in the hell are you talking about?” I had yelled, seeing all of my hopes dashed. I knew that Jerry disagreed with me over my involvement in Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement and probably disagreed with me over the Vietnam War, but I hadn’t a clue on how deep that disagreement had gone. Or what he based his information on.

My degree in International Relations had included a close look at Communism. I found nothing attractive about the system.

The closest I had personally come to any truly radical students had been the Free Student Union. Yes I had held a committee meeting at our apartment but I had also severed my relationship with the organization as soon as I figured out the folks behind the Union were primarily interested in fomenting conflict.

It was not a happy time at the apartment that night or for many weeks. I assumed the Peace Corps option was out and begin thinking of alternatives. They were bleak.

As it turned out, a few weeks later we received final notification from the Peace Corps. We were accepted. The people who said good things about me must have outweighed the people who said bad things. Either that or Jo looked so good they didn’t want to throw the babe out with the bath water.

Or maybe most of the other students signing up for the Peace Corps from Berkeley in 1965 had rap sheets similar to mine. I suspect they did.

There was one final hitch. We had our Peace Corps physicals at the Army Induction Center in Oakland. That was an experience. I quickly recognized that the physical was designed as the first step in making soldiers, a part of the de-individualization process. Lining up with a bunch of other naked men to be poked and prodded isn’t my definition of fun.

“Turn your head and cough.”

I took it like a man and escaped as soon as the opportunity presented itself. A couple of days later I came back from class and there was a note from my other roommate, Cliff.

“The Induction Center called,” he wrote, “and there was a problem with the urinalysis.” I was to call them.

“Damn,” I thought. “Why is this so difficult?” So I called the Induction Center and resigned myself to having to pee in another jar. With really good luck I might avoid the naked-man-line but I wasn’t counting on it.

I got a very cooperative secretary who quickly bounced me to a very cooperative nurse who quickly bounced me to a very cooperative technician who quickly bounced me to a very cooperative doctor… none of whom could find any record of my errant urinalysis.

They didn’t see any problems and they didn’t know who had called. They suggested I call back later and be bounced around again. More than a little worried, I rushed off to my next class.

That evening I reported my lack of success to Cliff. He got this strange little smile on his face and asked me what day it was.

“April 1st,” I replied as recognition of having been seriously screwed dawned in my mind. “You little twerp!” I screamed, as Cliff shot for the door with me in fast pursuit. It took me four blocks to catch him. The damage wasn’t all that bad, considering.

Next up: What do Peace Corps training and a dead chicken’s dance have in common?

Good Mornin Teacha

March 1, 2011January 23, 2015 / Curt Mekemson / Leave a comment

Main street Gbarnga circa 1965. Our main shopping district.

“Good Morning Teacha” thirty bright and shiny faces shouted in unison as I walked into the classroom on my first day of teaching in Gbarnga.

“Good morning,” I responded in my best new Peace Corps Teacher voice. And then reality struck. I was expected to entertain and actually teach these kids something over the next several months.

Unless you are a teacher, you might be saying, “Hey, how hard can it be to teach a group of second graders?” My only response is “Try it some time.”

Plus there were handicaps.

My students ranged in age from seven to twenty-two and spoke several different tribal languages. While Kpelle was the predominant language used in our area, several others were represented. English was supposedly the common language but its reach into tribal areas was minimal.

Pidgin English Liberian style provided the bridge. For example, I might say to you, “I have to go down town for about twenty minutes. I promise I won’t be gone long. Please wait for me.” The Pidgin English equivalent would be, “Wait small, I go come.”

One idiom I learned quickly was, “Teacha, I have to serve nature.” That meant, “May I have your permission to use the restroom?” Actually it was permission to use the outhouse or just as likely the ‘bush’ or even the side of the building. Some of my male students would listen to me through the open window as they did their thing on the wall. I admired their dedication but discouraged the practice.

Books created another problem; for the most part, there weren’t any. What we did have for reading were vintage 1950 California readers complete with Dick, Jane and Spot. I suspect we should have been grateful for anything but it was difficult for the Liberian kids to identify with big white houses, white picket fences and little white kids.

As for Spot, he bore a striking resemblance to food. Later, when I had a cat, my students would tease me by coming by, pinching him and saying, “Oh, Mr. Mekemson, what fine meat.”

Getting sick didn’t help the education process. I had been teaching for two months when I met an obnoxious tropical bug that knocked me out for several weeks. It announced its presence with a low temperature of 100 degrees that soon climbed to 103. Normally it hovered around 101.

As for its pedigree, who knows? Les Cohen, the Peace Corps doctor, would come by and shrug his shoulders a lot. He used the lottery approach to medicine. We must have explored his whole medicine chest.

The sad thing about being sick was that there were no substitute teachers. Whenever a teacher was absent, the class was left to fend for itself. Often, my students would come by to check on how “Teacha” was doing.

“How are you feeling Mr. Mekemson? When are you coming back to teach? Can’t you teach us while you are sick?” There’s nothing like thirty kids standing around your house and looking mournful to create guilt.

At least I was able to plow through a number of the 100 books the Peace Corps generously provided for Volunteers. There was also entertainment of another sort. Each day around 10 AM a woman would stop in the dirt road opposite our house, squat down and pee.

I didn’t have a clue to her motivation but I found myself looking forward to her visits. Maybe she was practicing Ju Ju (African medicine). Or maybe she just had to go or was marking her territory. Who knows? I tried to pry out of Sam what she was up to but he would just shake his head and mutter in Kpelle.

Evening entertainment was supplied by Miranda Hall. This popular bar/dance hall added substantially to my already splitting headache. Loudspeakers perched on top of the establishment blasted African High Life music for miles around. Since it was located one hundred yards from our house, we received the full benefit of its marketing campaign.

One song I remember from hearing at least ten times a night had a country-western theme: “Woe is me, shame and scandal in the family.”

Later, I actually witnessed a little shame and scandal in the house next to the bar. I was walking by when the ‘man of the house’ came down the street, nodded to me and went inside. It seems he was early. I heard a loud shout at the same time a well-endowed naked man burst through the screen window and hit the ground running. Right behind was the jilted husband. The two streaked by me and disappeared downtown.

The naked guy was really fast.

Les was out of town when my illness finally decided to peak. As my temperature passed the 103 mark and headed for 104 I began to worry about hallucinating and becoming irrational. I asked Jo to contact an Indian doctor who served the local community. Dr Swami (yes that was his name) came right over.

“Here, drink this,” he said.

Dr. Swami gave me a sweet, syrupy liquid that tasted great, knocked me out and cured me. The next morning I woke up feeling much better. I was even able to participate in helping consume a Thanksgiving turkey that Bob Cohen’s wife had prepared. The turkey tasted a little like sawdust due to the lingering remnants of my bug but hey, who was complaining. There was a bottle of scotch to wash it down.

(Tomorrow… Reading, writing and arithmetic taught to the tune of an ebony stick.)

How Do-Your-Part the Dog Evaded Half the Nation of Islam

February 25, 2011January 23, 2015 / Curt Mekemson / Leave a comment

(The Peace Corps turns 50 on Tuesday, March 1. In this series of travel blogs, I honor its Anniversary by relating my own experience a Peace Corps Volunteer in Gbarnga Liberia, West Africa starting in the summer of 1965.)

John Bonal, the High School Principal, lived in a cement-block house next to ours. He was a ‘Big Man’ in town by Gbarnga standards. Being successful in Liberia meant that your relatives came over and lived with you. It was the ultimate share-the-wealth-social-welfare program.

Part of John’s extended family included three dogs creatively named Puppy Doodle, Brownie Girl and Do Your Part. They came over to watch us white washing our new house and decided to stay. We fed them.

If I have my genealogy correct, Brownie Girl was Do your Part’s mom who in turn was Puppy Doodle’s mother. This three-generation family dug foxholes around the outside of our house and quickly established that they were our pets. Other dogs need not apply.

The Bonals were more than happy to have us take over feeding responsibilities and Rasputin was pleased to have someone new to terrorize. So everyone was happy.

Do Your Part took things a step further and adopted me. She was a charming little Basenji with impeccable manners. Everywhere I went, she went, including school. Normally this amused my students. I would walk into the class with DYP a respectful three feet behind. She would immediately arrange herself under my desk and quietly remain there until I left the classroom.

This worked fine until she had puppies. They started following her as soon as they could walk the 100 yards to the school.

I would arrive in my classroom followed by DYP who in turn was followed by four puppies. It was quite the parade. Unfortunately, the puppies lacked Do Your Part’s decorum and considered the classroom a playpen. The students decided it was not an appropriate learning environment and I agreed.

DYP and company had to go. It was not a happy parting.

“Take your puppies and go,” I ordered firmly. Do Your Part looked at me in disbelief.

“Out!” I said.

Sad eyes stared back accusingly. But I held firm. She didn’t let it get her down, however. As soon as the puppies had departed she was back in class. One time her insistence on following me had more drastic consequences.

Gbarnga had a sizeable population of Mandingoes, most of whom were Muslims. They had been gradually sifting into Liberia from across the Guinea border. Originally the Americo-Liberians had blocked their entrance to the country, fearing they might pose a threat to their power.

President Tubman’s open door policy changed that and by the time we had arrived their numbers had reached the point where they decided to build a mosque in town. I’d wander over on occasion to check their progress. The mosque was an impressive edifice by Gbarnga standards, easily five times larger than any other structure on the main road.

At last the day came for the mosque’s grand opening. Having watched it being built, I decided to attend the festivities. I put on a tie, grabbed our two cameras and headed out the door.

Do Your Part was waiting, as she always was, ready to go along. This was not a Do Your Part type of celebration, however. Muslims aren’t particularly fond of dogs and consider them unclean.

I figured this meant they didn’t want any dogs, even polite dogs, attending their holy ceremony. I suggested to Do Your Part she stay home. Fat chance. I walked 100 yards and glanced back over my shoulder. There was DYP, slinking along behind. I knew there was no way I would make it to the ceremony without a little brown dog lurking in the background.

Do Your Part would have to be left in our house. The action was drastic; the only time we let her in was to eat dead insects in the evening. She would come in just before we went to bed and wander around crunching down sausage bugs. It eliminated sweeping. She had never been locked inside.

Since my ex-wife Jo Ann was reading to a blind friend and Sam was off for the day, I couldn’t even leave DYP with company. I reluctantly shoved her inside and marched off to the sounds of doggy protest

It seemed to work. I reached the mosque just as the outside ceremonies were concluding and people were preparing to move inside. Dignitaries were everywhere. It was my intention to hang out on the periphery and remain inconspicuous.

This is hard when you are the only white person in the crowd and you have two cameras hanging around your neck. It took about thirty seconds for a tall, official looking man in a white robe to arrive and express in broken English how pleased he was that the international press from Monrovia had decided to cover the event.

While I struggled to inform him that I was only a local Peace Corps Volunteer, he ushered me into the mosque to a seat of honor. I looked around nervously. The podium was about 10 feet away and I was in the front row.

A hush descended on the crowd as an obviously important dignitary approached the podium. Liberia’s top Muslim Cleric had come to town to officiate at the opening ceremony. He gave me his best media smile and I dutifully took his picture.

Unexpectedly, there was a disturbance at the back of the mosque. Several men were trying to capture a little brown dog that was deftly eluding them and was making a beeline for me.

Do Your Part had managed to escape from the house. Now she was escaping from half the Nation of Islam. In seconds that seemed like hours she was in front of me, wagging and prancing around like she hadn’t seen me in six months. Hot on her tail were three huge Mandingo men.

“Is this your dog?” their leader managed to stammer out in barely repressed fury as he gave DYP a tentative boot in the butt. Fortunately she figured out that the situation was a little tense and decided there were other parts of town she wanted to see.

I was amazed at her ability to avoid lunging people. I dearly wished I could have escaped with her. It wasn’t to be. It was my job to stay behind and be glared at. I was so embarrassed I don’t remember a single part of the ceremony.

Later when I arrived home, Do Your Part was outside the house, all wiggles and waggles, obviously no worse for her adventure. Jo Ann greeted me.

“It was the strangest thing when I got home,” she said. “Do Your Part was inside and frantic to get out. When I let her loose she took off like our house was on fire. I wonder if Sam let her in by mistake.” So much for my planning…

If Someone Steals your Dog, Spouse or Car, Who Do You Call: The Lightning Man

February 17, 2011January 23, 2015 / Curt Mekemson / Leave a comment

(This is one of a series of travel blogs I am doing on my experience as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Gbarnga, Liberia, West Africa to honor the 50th Anniversary of the Peace Corps.)

The dark side of tribal beliefs arrived at our house late one evening in the middle of a tropical downpour.

A very wet and frightened candidate for student body president, Mamadee Wattee, knocked on our door. The opposition had purchased ‘medicine’ from a Ju Ju Man (witch doctor in Tarzanese) to make him sick.

It was serious business; people were known to die in similar circumstances.

Had the opposition slandered Mamadee or stuffed the ballot box, I could have helped but countering black magic was way out of my league. I took the issue to the High School Principal and he dealt with it. Mamadee stayed well and won the election.

Later, he unintentionally introduced us to another tribal phenomenon, the Lightning Man.

I had left Mamadee with $50 to buy us a drum of kerosene while my wife and I were on vacation. When we returned home, Mamadee was sitting on our doorstep. Someone had stolen the money and he was obviously upset. Fifty dollars represented a small fortune to most tribal Liberians. (Given that we were paid $120 dollars a month for teaching, it was hardly spare change to us.)

We didn’t believe Mamadee had taken the money and even if he had we certainly didn’t want him fried, or even singed. We passed on the offer.

Another Liberia Peace Corps Volunteer chose a different path. Here’s how the story was told to us. Tom had just purchased a $70 radio so he could listen to the BBC and keep up with the news. He enjoyed his new toy for a few days and it disappeared.

“I want you to make lighting strike whoever stole my radio,” Tom said, and then paid five dollars for the service. (Lightning Men have to eat too.)

Tom and his entourage then returned home. By this time, everyone in the village knew about the trip, including undoubtedly, the person who had stolen the radio.

The next morning Tom got up, had breakfast and went out on his porch. There was the radio.

(In my next blog I will relate the story about how Do Your Part, my dog, invaded a mosque and barely escaped.)

The Bush Devil Ate Sam

February 14, 2011January 23, 2015 / Curt Mekemson / 4 Comments

(This travel blog is one of a continuing series where I relate my experience as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the mid 60s in Liberia, West Africa honoring the Peace Corps’ 50th Anniversary.)

Joining the Peace Corps should come with a label like they put on cigarette packs. It would read “Warning: This experience may change your concept of reality.”

Our vision of the world is perceived through culturally tinted glasses. Not surprisingly, the reality of our parents and our society becomes our reality. It’s hard to imagine life from any other perspective. Close encounters with other cultures can shake this vision but not easily. We wear our culture like bulletproof vests, rarely allowing a stray thought to enter. Or we focus so hard on extolling our own culture that we fail to learn valuable lessons another culture may teach us.

One of the great values of the Peace Corps experience is the sensitivity and respect it teaches for the beliefs and values that other people hold. Often this leads to a greater appreciation of our own culture.

There are definite risks involved in running headlong into another society, however. Culture shock is one. The environment may be so different that it becomes disorienting and may lead to depression. My transition from California to Liberia was relatively smooth. At first, Gbarnga didn’t seem significantly different from my old hometown of Diamond Springs. I suffered much greater shock going from Diamond Springs to UC Berkeley.

Going native, or bush as it was called in Liberia, is another risk. A person becomes so enthralled with the new culture that he adopts it as his own. A joke circulated among West Africa Volunteers on how to determine if you were teetering on the edge.

Phase One: You arrive in country and a fly lands in your coffee. You throw the coffee away, wash your cup and pour yourself a new cup.

Phase Two: You’ve been there a few months and a fly lands in your coffee. You carefully pick the fly out with your spoon and then drink the coffee.

Phase Three: It’s been over a year and you have become a grizzled veteran. A fly lands in your coffee. You yank it out with your fingers, squeeze any coffee it swallowed back into the cup, and then drink the coffee.

Phase Four: You’ve been there too long. A fly lands in your coffee cup. You yank the fly out of the cup, pop it into your mouth and throw the coffee away. It’s time to go home.

If Peace Corps Volunteers had a hard time with culture shock and going bush, the tribal Liberians had a tougher one. Traditional cultures normally find their confrontations with the western world a losing proposition. It isn’t that our culture is so great; it’s just that our technology is so glitzy. How do you keep Flumo down on the farm when he has heard the taxi horn calling or climbed on the Internet?

Gbarnga was on the frontier of cultural change in the 60s. On the surface, life appeared quite westernized. An occasional John Wayne movie even made it to town. My students would walk stiff-legged down the main street and do a great imitation of the Duke. They dreamed some day of traveling to America where they would swagger down dusty streets and knock off bad guys with their trusty six shooters.

In town, loud speakers blared out music at decibel levels the Grateful Dead would have killed for while Lebanese shops pushed everything from Argentinean canned beef to London Dry Gin. The epitome of Americana, a Coca Cola sign, dominated the road as you left town on the way to Ganta and Guinea.

We had enough US-based churches to satisfy Pat Robertson. Missionaries were everywhere. Baptists, Catholics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians and numerous other Christian groups worked the streets in unending competition to recruit African souls.

Sometimes, if I closed my eyes and pretended, I could almost believe I was home. Almost. Then Africa would whip around and bite me.

Sure, the local villagers would dutifully file in to church on Sunday morning and pray for blessings like their western counterparts did but Sunday afternoon would find them out sacrificing a chicken to make sure God got the message. And yes, the Coca Cola sign was there but next to it was a giant Cottonwood with offerings to the spirit that lived inside the tree.

Sam, the young Liberian who worked for us and spent hours listening to our record player getting Charley off the MTA, was another case in point. Scarification marks marched down his chest in two neat rows.

“How did you get those,” my ex-wife Jo Ann asked with 10 percent concern and 90 percent curiosity.

“I can’t tell you,” Sam replied with obvious nervousness as Jo’s eyebrows rose. “But I can tell Mr. Mekemson.”

“Aha,” I thought, “Sam and I belong to the same organization, the Men’s Club!” Actually Sam belonged to a very exclusive men’s organization, the Poro Society. Its function was to pass on tribal traditions and keep errant tribe members in line. The women had a similar organization called the Sande Society.

Sam had been to Bush School the previous summer and learned how to be a good Kpelle man. Graduation to adulthood consisted of an all-consuming encounter with the Poro Society’s Bush Devil. It ate him. Sam went in as a child and was spit out as a man. The scarification marks had been left by the devil’s ‘teeth.’

It seemed like a tough way to achieve adulthood but at least it was fast and definitive. Maybe we should introduce the process to our kids and skip the teenage years. Think of all of the angst it would avoid.

Bush Devil was the missionary’s designation for a very important tribal figure who was part religious leader, part cultural cop and part political hack. Non-Kpelle types weren’t allowed to see him. When the Devil visited outlying villages, a front man came first and ran circles around the local Peace Corps Volunteer’s home while blowing a whistle. The Volunteer was expected to go inside, shut the door, close the shutters and stay there. No peeking.

We did get to see a Grebo Bush Devil once. The Grebo Tribe was a little less secretive or at least more mercenary than the Kpelle. Some Volunteers had hired the local Devil for an African style Haight-Ashbury Party. The Devil was all decked out in his regalia. Description-wise, I would say his persona was somewhere between a Voodoo nightmare and walking haystack. Grebo men scurried in front of him with brooms, clearing his path and grunting a lot.

We stayed out of the way and took pictures.

While the Bush Devil and the Sassywood Man I blogged about last week seem foreign and even threatening to the Western mind, the truth is that they played an important role in maintaining order within the tribal culture.

Next up: If somebody steals your dog, car or wife, who do you call: The Lightning Man!

Rasputin the Cat and the Cockle Doodle Rooster

February 7, 2011January 23, 2015 / Curt Mekemson / 1 Comment

(This is the fourth in a series of travel blogs I am writing about my experience as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Liberia West Africa in honor of the Peace Corps’ 50th Anniversary. In this article Rasputin the Cat and the Cockle Doodle Rooster team up to drive me crazy. In my last blog I described how Rasputin ended up being our cat. I first introduced Rasputin in the story about how Boy the Bad Dog became the entrée at an African feast.)

Rasputin did not grieve over Boy’s untimely demise, quite the opposite. Now he could resume his rightful role as Dominant Animal. Dog stalker was his primary responsibility under this job title. We knew when he was at work because the neighborhood dogs carefully avoided the tall clumps of grass where he liked to hide. He was particularly obnoxious when it was windy; the dogs couldn’t sniff him out.

A streak of yellow and a yip of surprise proclaimed Rasputin’s attack. He came at the dogs on his two hind legs, walking upright. This allowed both front legs to be used as slashing weapons. It was the wise dog that steered clear.

This wasn’t Rasputin’s only trick. He could also do flips. I had taught him how and was quite proud of my accomplishment. Each night Rasputin and I would head for the bedroom where I would flip him several times in a row on the bed. He was usually good for about ten before he would attack me, thus signaling that the game was over.

My wife thought it was cruel but I told her it was bonding time. It also turned out to be a valuable skill. One evening when the rice birds were returning to their nests, we saw a yellow flash out the window. Rasputin leapt into the air, did a flip and came down with bird a la carte. After that I figured Rasputin had graduated from flip school so we didn’t practice anymore.

Leap snake was another game we played. It was quite similar to leap-frog except the objective was to see how high Rasputin could jump. On a good night he would clear five feet. The rules of the game were simple. I would detach the spring from our screen door and roll it across the floor. Rasputin, who had a Liberian’s instincts, assumed that anything long and twisty was a snake and that all snakes were deadly poisonous.

His response was to shoot straight into the air and land several feet away. It was a situation where you leap first and ask questions afterward. In this case, Rasputin was guilty of jumping to the wrong conclusions.

One way he returned the favor of my hassling him was to wake me up at 5:30 every morning, demanding to be let in. He did this by practicing his operatic meows under our bedroom window. Since no amount of suggesting that he should learn from Boy’s experience discouraged him, I jumped out of bed one morning and chased him across the yard.

This got Jo Ann excited. Our cat was going to run away and never come back. Jo may have also been concerned about the neighbor’s reaction to my charging out of the house naked. That type of thing bothered her. I promised to repent and assured her that the cat would be back in time for dinner. He was.

Rasputin subcontracted with the rooster next door when he was out tomcatting. I didn’t make this correlation until the rooster crowed directly under our window one morning at 5:30. Even then I thought it was just a coincidence until he repeated himself the next morning.

It wasn’t just the crowing that irritated me; it was the nature of the crow. American and European roosters go cock-a-doodle-do. Even kids from New York City and London know this because that’s how it is spelled out in books. Liberian roosters go cock-a-doodle… and stop. You are constantly waiting for the other ‘do’ to drop.

“This crowing under our window,” I thought to myself, “has to be nipped in the bud.” That evening I filled a bucket with water and put it next to my bed. Sure enough at 5:30 the next morning there he was: “COCK-A-DOODLE!” I jumped up, grabbed my bucket, and threw the water out the window on the unsuspecting fowl. “Squawk!” I heard as one very wet and irritated rooster headed home as fast as his little rooster legs could carry him.

“Chicken,” I yelled out after his departing body. “And that,” I said to Jo Ann, “should be the end of that particular problem.” I was inspired though. Cats don’t think much of getting wet either. What if I kept a bucket of water next to the bed and dumped it on Rasputin the next time he woke us up. Jo couldn’t even blame me for running outside naked. With warm thoughts of having solved two problems with one bucket, I went to bed that night loaded for cat, so to speak.

“COCK-A-DOODLE!” roared the rooster outside our window precisely at 5:30.

“Dang,” I thought, “that boy is one slow learner.” I fell out of bed, grabbed the bucket and dashed for the window. There was no rooster there. I looked up and spotted him. He was running at full tilt across the yard away from our window. He had slipped up on us, crowed and taken off!

My opinion of the rooster took a paradigm leap. Here was one worthy opponent. The question was how to respond. It took me a couple of days of devious thinking to arrive at a solution. What would happen if I recorded the rooster on a tape recorder and then played it back?

I had a small hand tape recorder that I used for exchanging letters with my dad so I set myself the task of capturing the rooster’s fowl language. Since he had an extensive harem he liked to crow about, it wasn’t long before I had a dozen or so cock-a-doodles on tape. I rewound it, cranked up the volume and set the recorder up next to our front screen door.

The results were hilarious. Within seconds the rooster was on our porch, jumping up and down and screaming cock-a-doodle. There was a rooster inside of our house that had invaded his territory and he was going to tear him apart, feather-by-feather.

Laughing, I picked up the recorder, rewound it, carried to the back screen door, and hit the play button again.

“Cock-a-doodle, cock-a-doodle, cock-a-doodle,” I could hear the rooster as he roared around to the back of house to get at his implacable foe. Back and forth I went, front to back, back to front. And around and around the house the rooster went, flinging out his challenges.

Finally, having laughed myself to exhaustion, I took pity on my feathered friend and shut the recorder off. This just about concludes the rooster story, but not quite. One Friday evening, Jo and I had been celebrating the end of another week into the wee hours when we decided to see how the rooster would respond to his nemesis at one o’clock in the morning.

Considering our 5:30 am wakeup calls, we felt there was a certain amount of justice in the experiment. I set it up the recorder and played a “Cock-a-doodle.”

“COCK-A-DOODLE!” was the immediate response. No challenge was to go unanswered. “Cock-a-doodle” we heard as roosters from the Superintendent’s compound checked in. “Cock-a-doodle, cock-a-doodle” we heard in the distance as town roosters rose to the challenge. Soon every rooster in Gbarnga was awake and crowing and probably every resident was awake and cursing.

Jo and I decided to keep our early morning rooster-rousing experiment to ourselves.

(In my next travel blog on Peace Corps I will discuss the special power of the Lightning Man who could make lighting strike anyone who wronged you.)

Special note from BONE:

I just learned about the Bunnock Competition in Macklin, Saskatchewan Canada from Bruce and Nancy Campbell, friends of Curt’s brother Marshall. The symbol for the competition is a 33 foot high bone sculpture that is an exact replica of me. What smart people the folks of Macklin must be! Check the sculpture out at the Macklin site http://www.macklin.ca/bunnoc.htm.

Bone

Wandering through Time and Place

Exploring the world with Curtis and Peggy Mekemson

West Africa